


Magdalene

by punahukka



Category: Inglourious Basterds (2009), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Books, Cigarettes, F/M, Guns, Historical Reenactment, M/M, Nazis, Religious Themes & References, Revenge, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-08
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:31:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punahukka/pseuds/punahukka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“And what did she do to melt that seemingly icy heart of yours?”<br/>Erik takes a sip of his beer. “She killed Hitler.”</i></p><p>A what if? with Shosanna surviving Operation Kino and Erik struggling with the two loves of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Playing with Marvel's and Tarantino's toys.

 

Their eyes meet over the heads of people chatting away and eating early brunch in a café. She makes her way through the crowded room and sits down two tables from Erik, makes her order and unfolds a newspaper. There’s something wrong with the picture that he can’t put his finger on, so he settles on emptying his cup of coffee and leaving.

She passes him on the street two hours later, and Erik recognizes the tune her feet are tapping to the pavement: danger danger danger.

It’s late afternoon when they turn to the same little street from opposite directions, Erik falling a polite amount of steps behind. He follows but loses her after a few more turns.

*

“We should go out,” Charles states as soon as they’re in their hotel room.  
“Haven’t we done enough recruiting for today?”  
“You never know who you’re going to meet.”

*

It’s a habit, reaching for the keys even when he never uses them. It’s years of practice in self-control when he doesn’t flinch, even when he enters his room and there’s a gun on his temple, the safety going off with an ominous click.  
“Who are you?” With her free hand she turns on the lights.  
If he lives, it means hours and hours of self-loathing for being careless.  
“Asks the good lady who has taken the liberty to break into my humble sleeping quarters.” Erik has a hold of her gun now, just as casual (I know how to use this) and firm (and I’m not afraid to do it) as hers, and the metal responds to his reach with a familiar hum.  
“And still waits for an answer.” Her accent is faint but recognizable as French, and so is the scent of her perfume.  
“I’m the Frankenstein’s monster. Herr Doktor goes by the name of Klaus Schmidt.”  
“Show me.”  
Obediently Erik rolls up his left sleeve.

At the number the woman lowers her gun, puts it back to its holster under her coat with one movement, takes a cigarette from her pocket and lights it. “Schmidt’s not here anymore. It’s been more than two weeks already and from what I’ve heard the trail goes cold from Prague.”  
Erik says nothing until a graceful wave of her hand suggests he should step aside now and let her out of the still half-open door. “Who are you?” he grunts but has a nagging feeling he already knows her, from another time and place.  
“I am revenge.” She inhales the smoke, slowly, and blows it out, and there are stains of lipstick on the filter. “Meet me at the chapel tomorrow night at eight.”  
“Why?”  
“I am revenge.” She smiles a smile so sad Erik knows he knows her. “I know my kind.”

*

Charles Xavier is a touchy drunk, even more so when he has been turned down by a girl with some sorry excuse for a mutation Erik really hasn’t paid attention to.  
“Tell me, my friend,” the telepath asks softly after a moment of recovery, a hand clutching his shoulder, “have you ever loved a woman?”

*

She wears black and has most of her blond hair tugged under a newsboy cap. With his black trousers, turtleneck and dark grey overcoat Erik believes to be dressed properly for the occasion.  
“Why am I here?”  
“We’re out for blood, little brother.” She drops the cigarette she’s been holding and kills it under her heel. “Father Meier, a good German shepherd whose sins committed in the name of the Third Reich have gone un-confessed for too many years.”  
“What did he do?” Erik asks but already knows it doesn’t matter.  
“He had a habit of rounding up Jewish children in order to save them from the camps. The alternative wasn’t any merrier. Shall we?”  
While walking, the woman briefs him in on how she and her contacts have made sure the Father will be alone when the mass is over and the small crowd has left the church.

It might be a bit on the dramatic side when Erik shoves the short, balding man against the wall and nails him to a wooden cross with a knife through his palm.  
At first the Father has no idea why they’re doing this.  
After a much smaller knife the woman caresses his face with he starts cursing and spitting out how the heretic swines deserved every part of the attempted saviour he was offering them.  
The woman cuts him, and then comes the begging.  
“If there’s someone up there looking after you, now would be the time to address them,” Erik points out in a husky whisper boiling with hate as the woman raises her gun to the priest’s forehead.  
Hastily, and struggling with his words, the man starts reciting Pater noster.  
“I bet they get more points for Latin,” she sneers and pulls the trigger.

“I think I could use a drink,” Erik says, just to say something, as they walk out and vanish in the shadows from the passer-bys a gunshot might have made curious.  
“There’s a decent pub a couple of blocks away,” she informs and lights a cigarette. “The drinks are on me.”

*

“Once,” Erik answers and would rather leave it to that, but Charles’ ridiculously blue eyes pray for more information. “Four years ago. We met in Czechoslovakia.”  
“And what did she do to melt that seemingly icy heart of yours?”  
Erik takes a sip of his beer. “She killed Hitler.”

*

They sit in the corner table and keep a track on other customers, but they’re the only killers there and they dare to have a conversation keeping their voices low.  
They share their stories about their long-gone families.  
She tells him how she survived Operation Kino with only one bullet hole in her body. She tells him about her very own Frankenstein Hans Landa.

It’s getting close to midnight when Erik makes a coin hover over the table, and she arches an eyebrow (“I have seen some fucked-up shit in my life but this is new”), and he tells her about Schmidt, and she listens to him.

When they order another round Erik raises his pint to salute her. “We survived.”  
She laughs softly. “No, little brother, we did not. We are dead. We are only too stubborn to let it come in our way.”

*

“Do you believe in God?”  
It is certainly not a question Charles would have expected, but he seems to consider it. “I believe in humanity.”

*

The air feels chilly when they step to the street from the warmth of the pub. A gentleman would probably offer his coat to his date; Erik thinks any woman with the possibility of choosing what to wear deserves freezing to death in too light clothing. But he does wrap his arms around her as they kiss.

“It’s not about hating Nazis,” she says later in Erik’s hotel room, smoking at the small window. “It’s about hating people. Humans. What they’re capable of in the name of anything seemingly bigger than themselves. And it’s not about being a Jew; I couldn’t say I’m a good one. It’s about being unwanted for what ever you are in the eyes of those dubbing themselves righteous. It’s all about unjust, and making them pay.”  
Erik walks up to her, holding out a hand which the woman takes in her own.  
“Erik Lehnsherr.”  
“Shosanna Dreyfus.”

“Erik,” Shosanna tries the taste of the name on her tongue. “I have another appointment tomorrow. SS. The train leaves for Bratislava at seven thirty in the morning.”  
“And?” he knows he’s playing with his life but places his hands on her hips, yanking her closer.  
“Are you really making me ask?” she follows the line of his jaw with her finger and tilts her head.  
“I have nothing against killing SS officers, but I’m after Schmidt.”  
“And I’m after Landa. Maybe we should team up.” She brings her free hand to work on Erik’s belt buckle. “We would make one hell of a team.”  
“I don’t do teams.”  
“Me neither. But I’d very much like you to fuck me now.”

*

“In my experience, humanity doesn’t stand a chance.”  
“Against what?”  
Erik doesn't answer, and it's the first time the urge to fear him crosses Charles' mind.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nietzsche quotes from _Beyond Good and Evil_ , Dostoyevsky quote from _Crime and Punishment_.

 

The officer is prepared for an attack, as he should be, and things get a little messy. He is on his knees now, coughing blood on the supposedly expensive carpet with a handle of a large hunting-knife sticking out of his stomach, a gash on the corner of his eye bleeding rapidly down his cheek.  
“We were at war!”  
“War?” Shosanna laughs bitterly. ”That’s your excuse?” She shakes her head. “You cannot understand war. It’s understandable, of course, with all the human traits it requires, but one person can never understand it. No matter who you are, no matter where you stand, you cannot understand.”

“And what the fuck is your excuse?” the officer howls, maybe hoping the sound will draw some of his attention away from the sickening pain. He is a trained killer too, he knows as well as they do that wounds like his can take days to kill him. At this point the only hope he has left is that Shosanna and Erik have some sense of mercy and the decency to put a bullet through his head before it, and it makes the whole situation a lot more beautiful. Shosanna nods and Erik kicks him in the ribs for making too much noise.

“Living in a cellar like rats because of you? Being poked with needles and ripped open and tortured because of you? Having our families killed because of you? Hiding and fearing and dying because of you? Pick one."  
“Needles?” There’s a trace of hysteria coloring his voice now. “You don’t fucking believe in that Nazis doing human experimenting in order to create super-soldiers bullshit?”  
Erik twists the blade in his entrails without lifting a finger.

*

“You confuse me, my friend,” Charles says thoughtfully after maneuvering into their shared hotel room, kicking off his shoes and sitting on his bed. Erik is already lying on his own, pretending to read as the telepath’s mind touches the border of his own. It still feels peculiar but it’s not unpleasant. “And what confuses me even more is that I don’t mind, most of the time.”  
Erik makes a noise suggesting he has heard him but has no intention of commenting and makes a sideway glance or two as Charles continues shedding his clothes and folding them much more neatly than he would sober.

“Tell me about her?” he says, much more quietly, throwing an almost shy look at Erik.  
Erik puts his book down but shakes his head. “Maybe someday. Maybe never.”  
“Then tell me about yourself,” Charles pushes on, now in his boxers and undershirt, and before Erik has the time to stop him, making his way to sit on the edge of Erik’s bed instead.  
“You told me you already know everything.”  
“I may have exaggerated just a tiny bit to make you stay. A very tiny bit.” He narrows his eyes and shows with almost no space at all between his thumb and index-finger just how tiny that bit is. “But, you know.” Charles lifts his hand, hesitating for a moment where to place it, and pats Erik’s knee. “Tell me something. Anything, really. Can’t sleep. Too much noise.” Coming from a telepath’s mouth it means too much noise in his head and not in his ears, that much Erik has learned of his gift.

“Should I read to you?” Erik asks, the words escaping from his lips when he should teach Charles a lesson or two about invading people’s personal space.  
“Oh. Please do.” With a surprising grace Charles settles down beside him, Erik escaping as far from him as he can and picking up his book Charles has partly landed on. He’s drunk and he’s not and they’ll never talk about it, but for now Charles digs his way under the blanket and Erik clears his throat.

 _“_ _Almost every criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually and reached its highest point just before the perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The question whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide.”_

*

“Switch?” Shosanna suggests after they have taken their seats, offering him a worn copy of _Les Misérables_. Erik accepts the book, handing her _The Idiot_ in return. When there’s no police or military to stop the train from leaving, Victor Hugo keeps in occupied enough as the railroad takes them towards west.

*

They agreed on taking turns driving; they didn’t make it to the first state line before Erik ordered Charles to pull over and give up the wheel. He could entertain himself, with a book or a newspaper or the music from the radio; Charles just keeps talking. This morning, though, he’s quiet for once, falling back to sleep on the passenger’s seat as soon as they hit the highway.

*

“So,” Shosanna laughs and closes the book, running her fingers on its cover. “Supposedly it was about Jesus Christ?”  
Erik shrugs. “About the human ability to be good and the human tendency to look down on it. So about the basics of Christianity at least.”  
“Do you think you could ever believe in God again?” She doesn’t ask if he believes.  
 _“It was a piece of subtle refinement that God learned Greek when he wanted to become a writer ‒ and that he did not learn it better.”_  
“Friedrich Nietzsche. How convenient.”  
“He had a point there.”  
Shosanna picks a cigarette from a pack on her nightstand and lights it. _“Terrible experiences make one wonder whether he who experiences them is not something terrible.”_

*

“Who’s your favourite author?” Charles asks somewhere along the road in Illinois after waking up and demanding a cup of coffee in a diner.  
“T.H. White,” Erik yawns, drawing back to earth from his thoughts. “He wrote _The Once and Future King_.”  
“Isn’t it rather… British?” He knows there’s a glint in Charles’ eyes even if he doesn’t turn to look.  
“It’s rather universal, really.”  
“Who are you reading now?”  
“Nietzsche,” he confesses, having found a reasonably prized copy a couple of days earlier.  
“Oh.” Charles pauses for a moment, obviously trying to recall something. “ _He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster_?”  
Erik refuses to take the hint and shoots back with a smirk. “ _And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you_.”  
It shuts Charles up, for a little while.

*

“Am I a woman to you?” Shosanna asks, her voice hoarse and thoughtful, with one final brush of her lips (their carefully painted artificial red worn off by now) on the side of his cock.  
Erik disapproves the question by grunting and pulling her up from her knees by the blond hair his hands are knotted in. “I don’t know what you are.” He claims her mouth with a rather brutal kiss of tongue and teeth to give himself a moment to collect his thoughts. “Woman, man, person, idea, ghost, everyone, no-one. I don’t know, and I’m heading for the conclusion I don’t give a fuck.”

Erik is sure she already knows, even when he has no clue of how and when she has picked it up: the fact he has bedded a woman or two but prefers the quick and dirty anonymous lays with beautiful boys in dark alleys and filthy apartments, hating himself when he looks at their faces and sees nothing. Shosanna is something else, here and now, and it’s not about her body but her mind, even if he enjoys the curves and scars of both.

“Bend over.”  
She does, gripping the windowsill as Erik pulls up her skirt and pulls down her panties. He doesn’t bother to pay attention to the rest of their clothes but leaves an angry bite-mark on her lower back before shoving her legs further apart. She’s wet enough and inhaling in a sharp hiss as Erik thrusts inside of her.

*

The redheaded mutant kid is stoned and keeps muttering about fish, but what amuses Erik enough not to smack him in the head is Charles trying to keep a straight face. He might ask, later, what drugs do to a telepath, since it’s obvious this one is nursing fond memories of his Oxford days.  
 _Not much. I can’t keep off people’s heads but their thoughts are much more interesting that way. Fuzzy, though._  
 _No, you surely can’t. Keep out of people’s heads._  
 _Projecting_ , Charles shrugs and grins at him disarmingly.   
Erik lifts an eyebrow and concentrates on constructing an image making it clear that he’s very much aware of what the telepath has been doing in his unusually long shower the other morning.

Charles coughs and blushes with a quick _you_ _give too much credit for my arse, my friend_ before pointedly returning his attention to the kid.

*

“Come to America with me.”  
The mixture of cum and her own fluids dripping down her thigh is rather mesmerising, and Erik knows the only option is to say yes.


	3. Chapter 3

 

It’s their first night in New York City, and they remain unnoticed by blending in the crowds: hiding in plain sight. A handsome couple, dining at some modest restaurant, going to see a Hitchcock film and having a debate about the female lead and the purposes of film industry over a glass of wine. They have seen the greatest cities of Europe but this American little brother is something different; what it lacks in ancient dignity it makes up with its cockiness and hectic pulse, watching and waiting.  
   
*  
   
“Is something wrong?”  
The answer is pretty obvious since Charles sits at the end of his bed, shoulders hunched and face buried in his hands, lifting his gaze to him only after a few heartbeats from his question. He’s in his underwear, socks still lying on the floor next to his feet. It’s yet another hotel room before returning to the headquarters in a couple of days, a room with two beds and a small bathroom and a view over nothing, and Erik’s first guess would be homesickness. He has taken a shower and dressed for bed and tosses his damp towel over the bathroom door to cautiously cross the distance to his fellow mutant.  
   
“I find myself at the gates of a very remarkable _what next?_ This has been happening awfully fast.”  
Erik sits down beside him, concluding it’s as good an option as any other since he has no idea what he should be doing with his presence. “I’m sure the CIA will be more than happy to tell you what to do.” It’s a bad joke, and even worse when it’s not a joke, but it forces a shadow of a smile to the telepaths lips.  
“And that’s another one I have to admit I’ve been worrying about, my friend.” Charles turns his head to face him. “Will it be me or us?”  
“I know better than to make promises I’m not sure I can keep.”  
“I don’t want you to promise,” Charles says, very quietly, and some inner struggle is lost or won when he fixes his gaze to Erik’s. “I want you closer.”  
   
*  
   
The unbelievably scarred man has taken Shosanna a year and a half to track down, and they are grateful he finds their plans for Colonel Landa very hilarious.  
   
He invites them into his cosy apartment, shoos a huge crossbred dog away from the couch so that they can have a seat, makes coffee and digs up some maps and photographs. Back in the day Smithson Utivich, Erik learns, has perfected Nazi-killing into a profession, and he provides them with a location and a few names to work with.  
   
When they’re done Utivich sends them off with heartfelt handshakes and a wide smile. “Tell those fuckers the Bastards said hi!”  
   
*  
   
There’s a whole new struggle of _I can’t_ and _can I_? dripping from his mind, but Charles swallows and leans in for a chaste kiss, his dry lips brushing briefly against Erik’s.  
“Close enough?” Erik asks, hating his voice for sounding so hoarse.  
For once Charles doesn’t talk but settles for shaking his head. The warmth of the next kiss is only paving way for the rising heat, and Erik’s arms snake around the smaller man by a will of their own as Charles’ tongue sweeps over his bottom lip, pleading access to play with its kind.  
   
*  
   
“It’s still too far from the main land,” he sighs, impatiently, a pen circling an inch above Nantucket Island on the map. “It’s very unlikely we wouldn’t have to shoot our way out.”  
Shosanna sits down beside him on the floor and crosses her legs, unfolding a smaller piece of paper, absent-mindedly catching the pen hanging in the air and starting to tap it to her knee. “There is an Irene Hahne residing in Westchester who might have something to tell us.”  
“Who is she?”  
“A sweet little American housewife with too many former Gestapo assignments for my tastes.”  
“Tomorrow?”  
“Tomorrow.”  
   
*  
   
Charles makes no objection as Erik slides his hand down, across his chest and stomach to palm him through the fabric of his boxers, only to find out just how much the little ladies’ man is enjoying himself.  
“Closer?”  
Charles lets out a lovely muffled sound as he squeezes gently and kisses the side of his neck before dropping to the floor, positioning himself between Charles’ legs, running his hands up and down, marvelling the smooth skin, sucking a mark on his inner thigh. Charles lifts his ass to help Erik pull the boxers down, a faint shade of red colouring his cheeks as the visible exposing of his erection makes it all much more real.  
   
Erik keeps his eyes fixed to Charles’ face when he gives the first experimenting lick on the head of his cock. As he would have expected, Charles can’t ( _is not trying to_ , comes the quick correction, even the mental voice out of breath) keep away from his mind, but it’s rather pleasant, the instant feedback of sensations.  
   
*  
   
Shosanna sleeps beside him on the double-bed, her chest rising and falling to the rhythm of her breathing, and Erik knows all too well how easy the lungs are to shut down. A few minutes without oxygen and the brain is damaged beyond repair. Her fingers are draped over Erik’s shoulder: five fingers per hand, a thrilling amount of joints to dislocate in each. Her steadily beating heart sealed in a cage along with other major organs: the point is to get past the ribs.  
   
She might as well be what she seems to think she is: an idea made flesh, a spirit trapped in a ridiculously weak human body.  
   
*  
   
He can take Charles all the way to the root, his nose touching the softly curling hair of his crotch, the scent of man intoxicating; he quickly catches up on when to hollow his cheeks and suck, how to run his tongue to make his friend shake. Charles’ head is thrown back, other hand gripping the sheets, other Erik’s hair, Erik’s hands pressing his thighs to keep him still.  
   
 _Can’t hold for much longer_ is a fair warning, but Erik is determined to see this through.  
 _Then don’t._ He eases his hold, allowing Charles’ hips to move.  
Charles looks down at him, his eyes glassy, biting his bottom lip and letting out a sound that can only be described as a moan. Erik does his best not to gag as Charles fucks his mouth, coming in his throat after a few desperate thrusts, filling his mind with the white-hot glow of his orgasm.  
   
*  
   
Shosanna makes three phone calls and one threatening visit while Erik finds them a car.  
“Westchester is old money,” Shosanna says when she hops to the front seat, dressed to kill with the black and the hat, and lights a cigarette. “Let us hope the neighbours are dignified enough to mind their own business.”  
“The nearest one to the Hahne’s house is almost two miles away. We can get rid of the car later.” Erik doesn’t have to tell her that he has no driving license or that they couldn’t afford being too picky with the one he finally got, but the vehicle feels safe enough, the metal around purring to him quietly.  
   
Maybe somehow, somewhere, Shosanna senses it, how he gently stretches out with his power, and she says nothing but looks at him and smiles.  
   
*  
   
He wipes his mouth and gets up from his front-row seat (his legs are shaking), coming aware of the fact that he’s still wearing his pyjama bottoms (too tight) when Charles, breathing heavily but smiling in a manner somewhere between genuinely happy and dirty, points at them. “Take those off.”  
He does, and Charles pushes himself back on the bed, making room for Erik to settle beside him.  
   
“Get on your back.”  
Erik has a nagging feeling he’s too obedient to commands spilling from that pair of lips but doesn’t regret when Charles straddles his thighs, bringing one delicate hand to stroke his now painfully hard cock. He grips Charles’ hips, running his thumbs over sharp hipbones, the other fingers pressing their prints on the skin. The telepath bends down to attack his neck, shoulders, chest, kissing and licking and sucking and biting, still humming a tune of _pleasure_ in his mind, and Erik opens his mouth to a silent cry as their bellies and Charles’ hand are coated with his seed.  
   
*  
   
“Do you think we are any better than them?” Erik asks, not for the first time but this once out loud.  
“I never said I did,” Shosanna answers without lifting her eyes from the map on her lap. “We have to turn right.”  
   
*  
   
They’ve both taken a new shower and kept talking to the minimum, but finally Charles forms a full sentence: “Can I sleep with you?”  
It stirs something in his chest that sex cannot reach, and for a blinding moment Erik cannot breath.  
“I suppose you can.”  
   
It turns out (he should have guessed) that Charles Xavier is a cuddler, and Erik holds him, waiting for him to be asleep before moving to the other bed.  
When he sleeps, he dreams of cigarette smoke and blood-red lipstick staining Charles’ smile.


End file.
